This movie is pretty meh overall. While the overall plot depicted in the story is not very interesting, the mystery behind the Time of Even, and behind why the android behave the way they do is pretty interesting.
Note that the things below are mainly deductions based on the movie and images shown in the credits.
The android depicted in the movie are your generic three Isaac Asimov robot Three Laws of Robotics:
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
- A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws
But the ones in this movie also have another hidden rule, called The Time of Eve's Rule: "No discrimination between humans and robots." Also called Rule #1138. Created by someone called Shiotsuki. A man that seems to have had a left robotic arm, shown to be alive many years before the movie when androids were still being built. Possibly the creator of the software that lets androids be what they are. Extremely advanced human like AIs.
The AndroidPromotionCommitee (APC),a group trying to further push androids into human society, at one point mentions "The Tokisaka Incident", in which a robot hurt a human girl. But the incident was under investigation, and seems to be somehow related to another group called "The Ethics Committee" led by a man called Misaki, who's son is one of the main characters in the movie. It seems that group was somehow blamed for that incident.
That Tokisaka incident, and the girl in question seems to either be the daughter or the adopted daughter of Shiotsuki. Who with her went all around Japan opening and closing a place called "The Time of Eve", having robots acting like human customers for it, by writing the Rule #1138 on a blackboard, and making them act like that despite the Three Rules, because rule #1138 overrides them.
After all, the point of an android is to act like a human, for various reasons, the Three Rules of Robotics are there to set guidelines on how far they can go with it. But the core rule of their existence trumps even those rules.
The girl in the Tokisaka incident further went and opened the Time of Even in places without Shiotsuki, likely because the man died meanwhile. The movie depicts that same woman as as a bartender/hostess of the café, at it's current location, in some alleyway in Tokio, where the main plot of the movie is shown.
So here we have a world where a man created the software for androids, putting in rules that they are unable or unwilling to remove, that trumps even the rule to not hurt humans, showing that robots really are nothing but tools, dolls, meant to act out the illusion of humanity because they were made for that very purpose. And his likely adopted-daughter, who keeps up his game of "let's make androids do crazy stuff and act like humans, because we want them to" even after he is gone. Why?
It seems because the theme of the movie is that "Even Robots Can Be Loved?" And that is even shown in the movie.. But can they really? Because I dare say that the backstory of the movie and movie itself is contradicting this message.
Misaki Senior made his robot unable to interact with his son, because he feared that his son would come to treat it as a fellow human, loving it, caring for it, like a parent, replacing the one that is now missing from his life. And that is exactly what he did. Treating the robot as if he was real, as if his actions towards him were because he cared for him, even loved him. But can one truly love another when he was programmed to do so? Is it love then, when there is no free will but just a set of instructions preset into the robot?
I dare say that the story shown through snippets, TV commentary shown inside the story, and some snippets, tells a far more interesting tale then the one in the synopsis and the tags here, and even the ones in reviews here.
So I ask this question, that this movie asks as well, who is a human and who is a robot?
But the movie also answers this question loud and clear through the very ending credits, even though they are depicted via a "inspiring music", it is nothing but a simple tragedy. A tragedy of a man obsessed with robots, with his own creation, treating them as "real", for reasons only his mind could make clear.
It is an illusion, an fake humanity shown in these robots, and in this movie. That ensnares Rikou, and has already ensnared Masakazu Misaki when he was young. It shows that the older Misaki was truly right via that scene at the end, where his robot would not talk to him when it wants, no but when it is supposed to talk. It talks when it is supposed to follow the Rules at The Time of Even, and it talks for the sake of that, and for the sake of following his basic programming of child care for the younger Misaki. As soon as those rules cease to be in effect, the robot stops. Not unwilling, for it has no will of its own, but unable to do something that it was not meant to do. It is broken, as Misaki calls it. Broken by him? Yes. But nevertheless broken. Not like a man, but broken like a toy.
All the while maintaining an illusion of humanity. Orchestrated by a mentally unsound person, Shiotsuki and his daughter after.
You can love a thing, and you can love a person, but when you love a thing the same way you love a person.. is that healthy? Is that real?
It is nothing but an illusion of our limited minds.
Note: Many conclusions in here are pure conjecture based on snippets from the movie and the credit scenes.
